The candy bars that dieters are made to feel guilty about consuming contain what's increasingly being recognized as a wonder drug.

Chocolate.

Solid or liquid, chocolate and the cocoa it's made from contain a botanist's elixir of substances that reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease,
may help control mood
and help people lose weight.

Researchers at the American Chemical Society convention in San Diego on Wednesday released 18 scientific reports at a symposium highlighting even more benefits from chocolate and cocoa.

Among the findings:

Epicatechin, an antioxidant found in cacao and dark chocolate, may help fight Type II diabetes and heart failure. According to a study by UC San Diego researcher Francisco Villarreal, the chemical improves the functioning of mitochondria, the cell's energy factories, in skeletal muscle.

Cigarette smokers may benefit from dark chocolate, which contains substances called polyphenols that reduce the risk of blood clots.

So much is being discovered about the health properties of chocolate that there's even a new group, the International Society of Chocolate and Cocoa in Medicine, made up of scientists and researchers.

Chocolate has been used medicinally for thousands of years, starting with American Indians in ancient Mesoamerica, said
W. Jeffrey Hurst
, treasurer of the organization. Hurst is a senior staff scientist at the Hershey Foods Technical Center in Hershey, Pa., and a member of the American Chemical Society.

"Cocoa is a dynamo packed with polyphenols, has minimal fat, no sugar, and the serving size is 5 grams," Hurst said Wednesday.

Although there's been a lot of research in recent years on chocolate and cocoa, there hasn't been any international organization dedicated to the subject, Hurst said. The group was organized by a doctor in Italy, he said, and plans to hold its
first international meeting
in December 2012, in New York City.

Chocolate eaters exhibit a different profile of lipoproteins in the blood than those who don't consume chocolate, said Sumil Kochhar, a scientist at the Nestle Research Center in Switzerland. Lipoproteins bind to cholesterol and carry it in the blood.

The chocolate eaters had more high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, considered good, than non-chocolate eaters, Kochhar said. He presented the results at the convention.

Chocolate contains more antioxidants by weight than most other dietary sources, said
Joe Vinson
, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania at Scranton.

Moreover, there don't appear to be any bad health effects from chocolate, said Vinson, who organized the 18-study chocolate symposium.

"Individually, compounds may be at high levels toxic, but the taste and aroma that you get from chocolate are from really small quantities of things," Vinson said.

"People have done intervention studies with up to 100 grams of chocolate a day, which is two bars ---- that's a lot. And there aren't any biochemical changes on the negative side from doing that," Vinson said.

"The epidemiology says more is better. I wouldn't advise people to OD on chocolate ... but it is a relatively healthy snack, because the fats and the calories in the chocolate don't compute to a weight gain, as far as we know."